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Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump's ugly and acrimonious battle for the White House is barreling
toward the end, with the candidates taking the debate stage Wednesday night for
one final prime-time showdown. For Trump, the debate is
perhaps his last opportunity to turn around a race that appears to be slipping
away from him. His predatory comments about women and a flood of sexual-assault
accusations have deepened his unpopularity with women and limited his pathways
to victory. His supporters remain intensely loyal, but there are few signs he's
attracting the new backers he desperately needs.

Clinton takes the stage
facing challenges of her own. While the electoral map is leaning in her favor,
the Democrat is facing a new round of questions about her authenticity and
trustworthiness, concerns that have trailed her throughout the campaign. The
hacking of her top campaign adviser's emails revealed a candidate who is averse
to apologizing, can strike a different tone in private than in public, and
makes some decisions only after painstaking political deliberations.

The last in a trio of
presidential debates, Wednesday's contest in Las Vegas comes just under three
weeks from Election Day and with early voting already underway in several key
battleground states.

Trump has leaned on an
increasingly brazen strategy in the campaign's closing weeks, including
peddling charges that the election will be rigged, despite no evidence of
widespread voter fraud in US presidential contests. He has also charged that
Clinton attacked and intimidated women involved with her husband's affairs,
bringing three women who accused former President Bill Clinton of unwanted
sexual contact and even rape to sit in the audience for the second debate. The
former president has never been charged with crimes related to the encounters,
though he did settle a sexual-harassment lawsuit.

Trump is bringing President
Barack Obama's half-brother, Malik Obama, as his debate guest. Clinton is
bringing billionaire and frequent Trump critic Mark Cuban and Hewlett Packard
Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, one of the former secretary of state's
highest-profile Republican backers. Clinton spokesman Brian
Fallon said the Democratic nominee would be ready for any "scorched-earth
tactics" from Trump in Wednesday's debate.

Clinton, who has meticulously
prepared for the three debates at the expense of time in battleground states,
visibly rattled Trump in their first showdown by using his own controversial
comments about women and minorities against him. The businessman was on the
defense at the start of the second debate - which came days after the release
of a video in which he brags about kissing and grabbing women - but ended on
stronger footing, hammering Clinton for being a creature of Washington who
won't be able to bring about change.

Trump denied in the second
debate that he had made the kind of unwanted sexual advances he is heard
describing on the video. His denial prompted some of the women who have since
publicly accused him of assault to come forward. The debate proper starts 2am Thursday (Nigerian time),the 20th of October, 2016.